Filipino experiences and cultures showcased in New York exhibit

Dayo: Footprints and Dialogue, an art exhibition at the Philippine Center in New York City, explored Filipino experiences and cultural identity in the Big Apple.

The exhibition was organized by the Department of Trade and Industry’s Philippine Trade and Investment Center, under the leadership of Trade Commissioner Alma Argayoso.

Through paintings, prints on fabric, digital art and mixed-media works, it showcased Philippine creativity and the varied ways artists express their connections to home and their lives abroad.

Filipino visual artist and licensed interior designer Karol Ann Antonio, the exhibition’s curator and one of its featured artists, said Dayo was anchored in two questions: “What does it mean to be Filipino?” and “How does it feel like to be Filipino in New York?” These framed the city as both a global crossroads and an intimate, personal space.

Antonio approached these questions from the perspective of a Filipino traveler, or dayo — an outsider — encountering the bustle and vibrancy of New York, a city many Filipinos call home.

“The concept of footprints reflected migration and transition — steps that may be temporary yet leave lasting impressions,” she stated.

“Dialogue, on the other hand, emerged through memory-based works which invited reflection rather than definitive answers, positioning Filipino identity as fluid, evolving, and continuously shaped by interaction with place,” she added.

An educator and mentor in the Interior Design Program of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB), Antonio interpreted New York’s urban landscape in 10 original paintings, ranging from bold acrylic works to playful, layered compositions in oil pastel. She also presented prints that moved beyond traditional paper formats, reinforcing themes of labor, repetition and cultural transmission.

Drawing on more than a decade of professional, academic and grassroots practice, Antonio approaches spatial design as a socially engaged process that shapes human experience.

A highlight was her site-responsive textile installation, which reimagined New York’s vertical energy through Philippine weaving traditions. It reused fabrics from Habi: Discovering Possibilities for Philippine Fibers, a 2024 traveling exhibition that brought indigenous textiles to an international audience. Giving these materials a new setting reinforced Dayo’s themes of continuity and memory while reflecting a sustainable approach to artmaking.

“This is how I see New York — the colorful patterns and stories woven into Philippine textiles,” Antonio shared.

New York-based, self-taught artist Citadel Muñoz-Cruz, a Baybayin teacher and sound healing practitioner, also highlighted Philippine handwoven textiles in Dayo.

Her works incorporated inabel, binakol, Kalinga and Yakan weaves in embroidered compositions on cotton denim, with Filipino words handstitched in Old Tagalog abugida or Baybayin.

Also on view were photographs displayed under acrylic glass. Described as quiet, grounded and deeply felt, these images emerged from her practice of pausing amid the city’s noise to remember who she is.

“Through contrast, juxtaposition and paradox — between the contemporary and the timeless — Dayo revealed how Filipino presence, though often transient, leaves enduring marks within a global city,” Antonio concluded.